News, Analysis and Perspective for Solution Providers and Technology Integrators

How Vendors Are Moving Beyond IoT Security Concerns

IoT experts from vendors including KMC Controls, Cisco and ForeScout discuss whether security concerns about the Internet of Things are overblown.

By
Meghan OttoliniOctober 19, 2016, 03:03 PM EDT

As the Internet of Things grows into different business verticals, concerns around security and privacy have also increased. But are those concerns exaggerated?

Cisco Vice President Tony Shakib thinks so.

"This thing’s overblown. Financial services, they've been doing Internet of Things for decades. I remember 20 years ago people were afraid to go to an ATM machine, and they were counting their money, you don’t think about it anymore," Shakib said.

Mitch Kehler, Director of Sales at KMC Controls, said concerns over security in IoT come straight from the customer.

"We obviously can't have an IoT conversation without security," he said. "It hasn't happened yet, and you have to have a holistic approach when you’re talking to a customer. They’re very twitchy about it right now."

Shakib thinks part of the answer to security questions in IoT lies in simplifying connected devices.

"I think the way the world is going to go obviously is that the end devices are going to get dumber and dumber, and the intelligence is going to be in the cloud," he said. "Which will make it a lot easier to do the software upgrades."

But ForeScout Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President Rob Greer disagrees with that idea.

"I think it's hybrid, personally, I don’t think it will get dumb at the end," he said. "We’ve gone through these cycles back and forth."

Greer did stress the importance of segmenting networks 'in a dynamic way' when implementing IoT solutions.